by Joel Travis
“Did you go to the game alone?”
“I went with a friend. I can give you Dale’s number if you’d like to give him a call.”
Sergio’s basketball alibi threw me off my game. The rest of the interview was largely unproductive. I left his office and drove back to Marty’s house, hoping to get Susan’s car back in the garage before she noticed that I’d borrowed it.
#
“May I borrow your car for a few hours?” I asked Susan.
“You’re going out?”
“I wouldn’t borrow your car for a few hours if I was staying in.”
She let me take the Honda without asking what happened to the Pinto. I spent the drive to Cynthia’s house making mental notes about the suspects. I ranked them from one to eleven:
1. Sergio Moreno - Codger’s boss in suspicious investment business. Lives blocks from last sighting of Codger.
2. Cesar Hernandez – Had meetings with Codger. Set me up to take bogus bet. Knew I tried to cheat him. Knew I ratted him out on deathbed.
3. Marty Moran - Swiped betbook from gym locker and hid it in desk. Present at deathbed confession.
4. Julio Hernandez - Present at deathbed confession. Informed Cesar of confession. Followed me to Vegas.
5. Sheila Moran - Knew of bet from the start. Codger’s wallet, watch and keys buried in her garden.
6 - 9. Rev. Means, Forest Gardner, Ace Monroe, Susan Moran - Present at deathbed confession.
10. John Enright - Blind as bat. Lived with Codger.
11. Cynthia Moreno - Worked for Crump. Had access to house key. Married to top suspect. Lived with Codger. Sole heir and beneficiary.
Do you agree with my rankings? I’m sure a nitpicker like Sheila would find room to quibble. I can hear her now, saying that it’s ridiculous to rank Cynthia last, one level below a blind man. Nevertheless, those are my objective rankings, however rank and objectionable they may seem to second-guessers and nitpickers. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the man in the arena.” And I was the man in the arena—leading the investigation, interrogating suspects, getting abducted, etc.
The man in the arena was full of enthusiasm as he pulled into the circular driveway. Yet when I killed the engine, my enthusiasm waned in the cold, silent night as I realized that it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Suspect Eleven could poison me, thus ending my glorious stint in the arena. I sat in the car, trying to think of a logical reason why I needn’t worry about being poisoned by my soulmate. What if Sheila was right? What if Cynthia’s dinner invitation was a toxic trap?
I’ve heard that ingesting poison is a horrible way to die. I imagine there are convulsions and enough violent choking that you can’t get the words “Pass me the water, please” out of your mouth. And while you’re dying a horrible death, your killer is laughing at you from across the table. Your last thought on this earth is that you wish you had dined with a nicer person.
I was contemplating a hasty retreat when a vision appeared in my mind’s eye—a vision of an angel. An angel with big knockers. I knew it was Cynthia I was seeing in my mind’s eye, and I took it as a sign. Not a sign that I was obsessed with sex and always would be, but a sign that everything would be okay if I quit thinking about poison and started thinking about having sex with an angel.
Andrea greeted me at the door, jumping up and down, telling me how she’d helped prepare the dinner. Cynthia was still in the kitchen doing the real work and Andrea led me there, pulling me along by my sleeve. To my surprise, she kept pulling as we passed the kitchen. Cynthia was standing near the oven, wearing an apron and an enormous orange oven mitt. She smiled and gave me a comical salute with her oversized paw as I went by.
I wondered where Andrea was taking me. My guess was the backyard to throw the football in the dark until one of us got hit in the face and ran inside crying to her mother. Our journey ended when we reached the living room. Andrea pushed me onto one of the couches near the marble table. A thick book, colorful folders, and loose papers covered the tabletop.
“Mom said you could help me with my homework before dinner,” she said. “Do you know much about the presidents?”
She showed me a chronological list—starting with George W. and ending with George W.—and an illustrated book featuring headshots of the Heads of State.
“Here’s how it works,” she said. “There are forty questions we have to answer. The answer will always be the name of a president. If we think the answer is someone who’s never even been president, then we’ll know we’re wrong and we’ll have to guess again. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Let’s say the answer to the first question is John Adams. He was the second president, so we write down a 2. We don’t write down his name, just his number.”
“Why?”
“Because we have to connect the dots after we answer the questions.” She sorted through some loose papers, extracting a page containing only numbered dots. “If we get all the answers right and connect the dots in the right order, we’ll make a picture of one of the presidents!”
So it was only a simple connect-the-dots project. I’d completed many such puzzles with great skill in my early years. As I progressed through school, the connect-the-dots assignments dwindled in number and my grades dropped accordingly. Every time I mastered a skill, they’d yank it from the curriculum. I was constantly having to learn new things and I never got to use the stuff I’d already learned. The real shock came after I graduated from college, when I discovered that ninety-five percent of what I’d learned in school was worthless in the real world. I felt like the butt of a protracted practical joke. I’m surprised they didn’t print my diploma with disappearing ink.
We answered all forty questions and compiled an impressive list of numbers. I let Andrea connect the dots, leaning over her shoulder to see which president would come to life before our eyes.
“Who is it?” she asked upon connecting the final dot.
“What is it?” I asked. “I was expecting a face.”
She giggled. “Me too.”
I picked up the volume of presidential portraits. I flipped through the pages, searching for presidents with jagged facial scars. Even the ugly presidents bore no likeness to our man. Out of desperation, we called Cynthia in as a consultant. She suggested the possibility that we answered ten or twenty questions incorrectly. We sent her away.
“What do we do now?” Andrea asked.
“Don’t worry, I have an idea. You stayed home sick from school today.”
“Mom says I still have to do my homework. It was due today.”
“Exactly. It was due today. All you have to do is get on the phone and call one of your little classmates who attended class today when the assignment was discussed. He or she will know which president this is supposed to be.”
“That would be cheating, wouldn’t it?”
“You don’t have any choice. You’re looking at a big fat zero.”
Andrea ran to the kitchen phone before I could stop her. Her mother overheard the call and cut it off before the disfigured president’s identity could be disclosed. Cynthia sent her daughter back to the living room to take another crack at the forty questions.
“It didn’t work,” Andrea said.
“That’s okay. I’ve been studying the picture. See the crooked lines at the bottom of the face? I’m thinking that might be a scraggly beard. If so, we can eliminate all the modern-day, clean-shaven presidents.”
“Lots of the dead ones have beards. How can we tell who it is?”
“What grade are you in?”
“Second.”
“It’s Abe Lincoln.”
“It sure doesn’t look like him.”
“It doesn’t look like anybody. Trust me, it’s Honest Abe.”
“I think it’s Rutherford B. Hayes.”
“Hayes will get you that zero.”
Andrea wrote “Abraham Lincoln” at the top of t
he page.
#
Beef tenderloin, asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, and bread. Hell, the poison could be anywhere. It could be in the red wine Cynthia is pouring into my crystal goblet. Or she might be saving the poison for dessert.
Cynthia asked me how I planned to solve the case.
“I may not have to do anything,” I said. “In most of the mysteries I’ve read, the murderer makes a mistake which gives him away.”
“What if he doesn’t make a mistake?”
“In that case, I’d have to tip my hat to him for pulling off the perfect crime.”
“You’d just give up?”
I shrugged. “No use breaking my back if he’s that smart.”
You may be thinking that my defeatist attitude seems out of character. It was all a ruse, a precautionary measure in case she was the killer. I didn’t think Cynthia would bother to poison an incompetent detective. Putting the possibility of poison out of my mind made it possible to swallow my food without grimacing.
It’s true that the murderer often makes a mistake which gives him away. He may not realize his mistake until weeks later. Maybe he’s digging around in the trunk where he stores all his various disguises and he can’t find his false beard anywhere. He tries to remember when he last wore it, and then it hits him. The beard was part of his disguise when he killed that old man last month. “Oh, crap!” he says to himself, “I’ll bet I left it out at the murder scene. It’s too risky to go back for it. I’ll have to buy a new one.”
Or he may decide that it’s too risky not to go back for it. He can’t leave evidence lying out in the open. Lots of his friends have seen him in that beard over the years. He doesn’t want to kill them. It’s easier to go back and retrieve the beard.
Sometimes the murderer gives himself away by panicking prematurely. The detective enters the room where all the suspects are gathered and says: “I believe the murderer is—” and before he can finish, the murderer leaps out the window, which draws suspicion because in the past he had always used the door to exit. The detective finishes his statement: “—going to get away with it this time.”
#
Our dinner conversation sparkled. There were no awkward pauses, except when I couldn’t talk because my cheeks were bulging with bread. We enjoyed a perfect evening, the only blemish being when I spilled a glass of red wine on her white linen tablecloth. Oh, and when that piece of meat flew off my fork as I was gesturing to make a point and landed in Cynthia’s hair. A funny faux pas during a romantic dinner is the stuff memories are made of. At least that’s what I told myself as I stuck my fork into her hair to dislodge the entangled beef.
The wine flowed freely. There’s nothing better than free wine. I told Cynthia about my interview with her husband, and how one of Cesar’s thugs had abducted me just up the street. We talked late into the night and finally parted with a kiss. I say “finally” because it took her a few minutes and all of her strength to break free of my embrace and push me out the door.
I staggered out to Susan’s Honda. None of the keys seemed to fit the ignition, no matter how forcefully I jammed them into the keyhole. I eventually got the car started, and the engine came to life when I mashed down on the accelerator with both feet. I ran over some flowers, but I must not have been too drunk, because I swerved clear of the French windows at the last instant. A few seconds later I was happily zigging and zagging down the deserted street.
Yes, it was a night to remember, from what I can remember. I’m sure Cynthia will refresh me the next time I see her. In the meantime, I have a murder case to solve.
Chapter 18
I woke up holding my throbbing head, twisting in agony on the dog mat on the laundry room floor. The third time in a fortnight I’d woken up with a hangover. First, after my Vegas drinking spree with Sheila, then again after our Thanksgiving Eve celebration when she’d insisted that we consume three bottles of Marty’s wine. I can’t count how many times I woke up with horrendous hangovers while I was married to her. I’m not blaming her for this latest hangover, but what does it say about Sheila that I have to specify which hangovers she didn’t cause?
I turned my thoughts to the case. A tough case to crack. I didn’t have a crime scene, a time of death, or a Codger corpse. Luckily, the police didn’t either. If they did, I’d be in jail.
It might actually be easier to solve the case if I was in jail. I could speak with experienced criminals, pick their tiny brains, and learn to think like them. Murderers are self-centered thinkers, capable of rationalizing any decision or action that serves their self-interests. I’d have to learn a whole new way of thinking, but it might be worth a try if I could work it to my advantage somehow.
Why did the killer plaster my bathroom wall with those photos? I know he did it to frame me, but why bother? Why risk entering my apartment when he’d already framed me by planting the Codger’s wallet, watch, and keys in Sheila’s garden? Seemed like overkill. He wasn’t just a killer, he was an overkiller.
He’d gone too far for his own good. I remembered what I’d told Cynthia: “In most of the mysteries I’ve read, the murderer makes a mistake which gives him away.” Had I uncovered the murderer’s mistake? Yes! And wasn’t it now obvious who the murderer was? No!
You can’t expect me to nail down every last detail when I’m hung over. One thing I knew for certain. The killer could only be one person. Not a gang. If it had been a gang of killers, surely one of the more reasonable members would have objected to the idea of framing me a second time. “We did that already,” he’d say. “Let’s get started on our next murder.”
So I knew the killer could only be one person and one person only. I just didn’t know his or her name, or if he or she was a man or a woman. It had to be a man or a woman. None of the suspects are transsexuals. It’s not impossible that Barbara Crenshaw used to be Barney Crenshaw, but she isn’t a suspect.
A great detective is never satisfied with his progress, and I certainly wasn’t satisfied with mine. The truly great ones are always thinking one hour ahead, planning their next move. I decided my next move should be to remain perfectly still until my head stopped throbbing.
#
It was a twenty minute walk from where the bus let me off to Lori’s apartment complex. I wish they’d put the stops closer to the places I want to go. Lori opened the door after my first knock, wearing her skimpy kimono.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
“You don’t sound happy to see me.”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“Use your peephole and you’ll never be surprised.”
“I thought it would be Eric.”
It took me a second to remember that Eric was her jailbird boyfriend.
“What do you want?” she asked. “I gave you seven hundred dollars a few days ago.”
“I’m not here about the money. May I come in?”
“I don’t think Eric would like it if he found you here.”
“Nor would I. Please, Lori, it’ll only take a second.”
I entered the apartment, again impressed with the contemporary black and white decor. Lori crossed the room and sat in a chair at the kitchen table.
“I’m working on a design,” she said. “What do you think?”
She handed me a page of notebook paper with an ink drawing of a dolphin.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“For my upper thigh or the back of my neck. It’s a tattoo.”
“I like it,” I said. “He’s smiling.”
“He’s cute, isn’t he? Should I have him smoking a cigar?”
“It’s good the way it is … hey, I have an idea. Can I mark on this?”
“Go ahead.”
I picked up the pen and drew ten closely-spaced vertical lines on top of the dolphin. On top of those I added ten horizontal lines.
“What’s that supposed to be?” she asked.
“Tuna net.”
“Why wo
uld I want a tuna net tattoo?”
“Because this is a way to make a statement with your tattoo and raise awareness. Do you have any idea how many defenseless dolphins are killed each year because they get tangled up in tuna nets?”
“How many?”
“I have no idea. That’s why the awareness needs to be raised.”
“You’re crazy. Nobody would even know what it’s supposed to be. I’d spend half the night explaining my tattoo to drunk customers.”
“You’re a topless dancer, the ideal job for displaying a tattoo. You could make a real difference, Lori. If you saved one dolphin per table dance—”
“Save your breath. Your design doesn’t work as a tattoo. It’s too complicated and it’s ugly. It doesn’t even make sense. Why would the dolphin be smiling if he’s trapped in a net?”
“They’re just dumb animals.”
“I thought dolphins were smart.”
“How smart can they be if they keep swimming into the nets? I can understand how the first guy might swim into an invisible net, but there’s no excuse for his friends swimming into the same net once they see he’s hung up.”
I could tell Lori was dead set against the idea of having my tuna net design burned into her skin. Anyway, I had done my part to save the dolphin population, even if Lori wouldn’t hold up her end. Thankfully, there are plenty of aquariums and amusement parks, safe havens where dolphins thrive in tanks twice the size of my apartment.
Lori asked why I’d come by and reminded me that her boyfriend might turn up on her doorstep any minute. I didn’t have the luxury of easing into my presentation, so I just blurted out the favor I needed. Lori appeared to be shocked, though I knew it was only an act. Strippers are pretty much shockproof.
I pulled some folded papers from my shirt pocket. These pages listed the steps required to execute the plan I had in mind. She unfolded the pages, read through the steps, and smiled mischievously. I suggested she have fun with it, pretend she was an actress playing a part.